This project, as the mayor of Cordoba, José María Bellido, recalled, had to face years of ups and downs to become reality, but now the La Foggara community kitchen has been created with the vocation to last over time and to be a valuable resource for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The project, as Bellido pointed out, was financed with European funds for regional development, and its implementation "is the result of the sum of many efforts", including those of the residents, the administrative institutions and the entities involved, such as the Fundación Don Bosco which now takes care of its management.
In principle, according to the delegate to the city's Social Services, Eva Contador, there will be 30 families benefiting from the program who, in groups of five, will participate in workshops three days a week, in the morning, where they will cook menus for 120 people throughout the week. The initial budget for meals - some of which will be both lunch and dinner - is 10 euro per person per day.
The Spanish credit institution Caixabank also contributed substantially to the initiative, with 30,000 euro that will be used to purchase the food with which the dishes will be prepared until 31 December of this year. The Commercial Director of Caixabank for Eastern Andalusia, Dr. Gerardo Cuartero, on the occasion of the opening stressed that he was "pleased" to make this project possible, the second in which the bank works in the Las Palmeras district, and said that in addition to the cooking workshops "we will work with the participants two days a week through various other workshops, so that they can develop their personal skills and abilities and have a future with greater opportunities."
Chef Ferrán Adriá, as ambassador of Caixabank, stressed that "these projects are extremely important", but that it is necessary to be "pragmatic and objective" because "these are seeds that are thrown away". In this regard, Adriá added that "I believe that public-private projects are the ones that really work."
The chef also stressed the value of the world of cooking, a sector, he said, "very important in economic terms, health, culture and, in this case, as a social commitment". In this sense, Ferrán Adriá stressed that cooking is as important as food and raw materials for feeding the population.
Finally, the mayor added that "many of us are trying" to make "that seed" to which the chef referred "bear fruit". "When we all work together, projects bear fruit" said Bellido.
The La Foggara community kitchen will also involve professionals from the Spanish Imibic research institute who have already worked with users in healthy eating workshops and who will help design the menus.
Source: Salesianos.info
